Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DUFFY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, as I sit and listen to this debate today, there is no doubt the Democrats' position is let's just keep the status quo, don't change anything, let's continue on with our $17 trillion debt, let's continue to borrow and spend and spend and borrow and never change course.

We know that is their position by way of the amendments they offered in the Budget Committee and by the conversation you hear on the floor today. Mr. Chairman, we also know that, by way of the Senate budget, when they put one out, because it never balances, and we know that because of the President's budget that he puts out, because it never balances.

It passes off this massive liability to the next generation, and their policies have a real impact on the country as a whole.

We talk about seniors. The Medicare trust fund is going broke in 12 years--it is going bankrupt--and my friends across the aisle, Mr. Chairman, don't want to change it. They want to leave our seniors today and our future seniors in jeopardy with a trust fund that is going broke.

It is hard to lead. It is hard to put ideas on the table and say: listen, my friends, let's come together, let's be responsible, let's make it sustainable, let's fix it--when the response is: don't do a darned thing, continue on the course to a bankrupted trust fund.

That doesn't serve our seniors well. That doesn't serve our next generation of seniors well.

Speaking of Medicare, there is only one party in this town that took over $700 billion out of Medicare and used it for ObamaCare--they raided it--and that is the Democrat Party, Mr. Chairman. That is unacceptable, and to come to the floor today and tell us and the American people that they are here to protect it just isn't true.

We are on the course to a fiscal calamity, and if that happens, who are the people who are hurt the most among us? The people who are hurt the worst are the poorest, the ones who are most in need of government assistance.

We should look to our churches and to our communities for that help, but there is a role for government. If you have a debt crisis, if you have a fiscal crisis, and if you have people who have a hard time heating their homes or putting food on their tables or who have kids who want to go to college or if you want to build roads and bridges, there is not money there for those projects.

If you want to be able to invest in your future, you have to make sure you have a budget that is sustainable. When you pay $230 billion in interest alone today, when the Fed is printing money to buy down that interest rate and when the President says, in 10 years, interest on the debt is going to be $880 billion--you can build a lot of roads, bridges, feed a lot of people, and send a lot of kids to school for almost $1 trillion a year.

Let's fix this problem. Let's work together. Let's balance our budget. It starts right here in the House with the Budget Committee.

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Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, the House has put out a responsible budget under the Budget Committee that balances in 10 years. But this is an opportunity for us to actually see the vision, the ideas of the Democratic Party. If they were in control, what would they give us to try to bring America to a more sustainable path?

What they give us, Mr. Chairman, is $6.6 trillion in new taxes. If I had $1 for every time I hear, ``If we just had a balanced approach and we could raise taxes on a millionaires and billionaires,'' if I had $1 for each one of those comments, I think we would balance the budget.

If that were the case, raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, you would think that they would come up with a budget that actually balances. The bottom line, my friends across the aisle, even raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires, their budget never balances. In their ideal budget, the Medicare trust fund still goes bankrupt in 12 years. If you are going to raise taxes, let's fix the problems. This is rife with huge issues.

Listen, I think the real secret here that my friends on the other side of the aisle are not telling the American people is that they do have a way to pay for this, and the way to pay for it is not through millionaires and billionaires. They are going to pay it by taxing hardworking middle class families, raising their taxes in a way to pay for greater government spending. It is a budget that actually looks to government programs, government giveaways, instead of looking to the private sector to actually grow our economy.

Listen, I think you couldn't have a better example of two different views about what direction you take the country: one of big government and big taxes on millionaires and billionaires and middle class Americans, or a responsible budget that reforms the way we spend, makes government responsible, and actually keeps our promises to the American people.

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